Swapped my go-to siren mount after a job in a strip mall last Thursday...

I was at a strip mall over on Elm Street doing a new install and the manager kept complaining about false alarms from the unit next door. I always mount sirens directly to the drywall ceiling but then I saw their guy had used those rubber isolation mounts to stop vibration. After talking to him for 5 minutes I grabbed a set for my own kit and the difference in false trigger rate is wild. Anyone else ever switch mounting methods because of a neighbor installer's trick?

3 comments

3 Comments

quinncarr1mo ago

Hold up, I gotta disagree with you on this one. The rubber isolation mount is a bandaid fix, not a real solution to false alarms. I see it all the time where people use those things and the siren still triggers because the real problem is bad wiring or a shitty contact on the door sensor. You shouldn't be blaming vibration for false alarms unless you've tested everything else first. Mounting to drywall directly works fine 90% of the time if you anchor it properly with a toggle bolt. I'd bet money that neighbor installer had a loose connection or a bad magnet gap, and the rubber mount just made it less obvious for a while.

wesleyb201mo agoMost Upvoted

@quinncarr Ain't that the truth. Fixing the root cause is always cheaper than the bandaid, just like with car rattles.

rowan9691mo ago

Wait, didn't you ever work on an old alarm system where the contacts were just corroded? My buddy had that exact issue in his shop, swapped to isolation mounts and it still went off every time the AC kicked on. He finally traced it to a bad solder joint on the control board, not the mount at all.